It's been 10 years since this was first requested and still hasn't been implemented :(

The Department section seems a bit useless if it's not searchable...

This is a crucial need! Otherwise a useless field if not searchable.

This was suggested back in 2012 and it hasn't been implemented yet?

After you enter a business into Redatil, then go to Departments to enter your contacts...The Contact in that section doesnt appear to be Searchable. I wish i could find people from business without remembering what the name of the business was...I know the person.

This would be helpful.

I noticed when creating a Business Contact I have the opportunity to list someone as part of a Department; however, you aren’t able to link to a contact already stored in your database. Instead it's an unsearchable piece of data tied to the Business Contact. This is inefficient. I want the Departments subsection of a Business Contact to be able to select from already existent Individual Contacts.

I understand that I can link Individual Contacts to a Business through Memberships, but when working in a relationship/sales organization, it's imperative to keep data efficient and reduce the number of screens needed before being able to make that call. Allowing Departments to reference Individual Contacts would go a long way in improving the layout of a Business Contact for relationship/sales efficiency.

This was partly suggested already in seeking this ability with Primary Contact. Allowing this for Departments would be even better though, as one could list all contacts related to the business that one needs. Here is the link to the aforementioned suggestion: http://feedback.redtailtechnology.com/forums/281220-crm-tailwag/suggestions/10127184-business-contacts-suggested-improvements.

Thus, my request is that the Departments subsection of a Business Contact be allowed to select from already existent Individual Contacts.

Alternately, since Memberships already does all of this functionality, could we instead simply replace the Departments subsection with Memberships on a Business Contact and use these 4 Fields: Job Title, Contact, Phone (primary), Email (primary).

Within our businesses, we want to be able to identify individuals who would be Centers of Influence. We'd like to be able to do email marketing to them. Currently, I have to do a custom export with Department Name and sort out all of those individuals who are not considered Centers of Influence.

I recently discovered the use of departments and names and phone numbers and email, etc. in a business contact record. Seemed like a great idea and I started using it. Then I discovered a could not search for that employee unless they had their own separate record. That destroys part of the purpose of the department feature

When you do a contact search and the results list of contacts shows up; Please add "Department" to the choosable fields from the drop down menu so we can differentiate between multiple contact listings with the same name. Example: "CitiBank".
Obviousley, Citibank has many numbers and departments. When the current list shows up, we need to be able to see the particular department we might want to call want to call. The current drop downs are insufficient to differentiate between multiple contact entries with the same name. This should be "at a glance" so we don't have to click or scroll on the particular contact(s).

After capturing Department Contact Name for Business, that name should be searchable. You should not have to scroll to bottom of Business Contact record to enter Primary info and later to view info. We should be able to see Department contact up top, and that person's name should be searchable either by their last name or by the Company name.

Let's say you have 5 people you deal with within one company and you have them listed in the department section of the Companys Contact (instead of making an individual contact for each) you should be able to search the persons name and they should pop up - only individual contacts pop up.
So if I want to speak to John Jay at IBM, if I search John Jay he will not show up since I don't have him as an individual contact - I would have to remember he's with IBM and do a search for IBM to get his #.

It would be incredibly helpful to be able to search by phone number. And extremely helpful that when searching for a name, the results that are returned should also include "Department Contacts" within a company. For instance, right now if I search for "John Smith" who is listed as a contact under "Departments" within "ABC Company, Inc." -- NO results show up. I would have to search for "ABC Company, Inc." in order to pull up John Smith. When you have hundreds of vendors and thousands of contacts for all your vendors, its nearly impossible to memorize the vendor companies in order to search for someone.

This would be wonderful, please expand the search to include the department contacts! Almost 4 years later, I think it's time to at least mark this request as "under review", Redtail!

Contacts listed under Departments in company records should show up in basic Contact search box results (the search field at the top of the main dashboard screen).
Until this is fixed, users need to create a new CRM contact also for every "department" contact at our vendors and other non-individual contact types.

Yes, please, please, please let the people listed in the departments be included when you search a name!!!! And it'd be great if you could add a little more information for people in the department area.

Please add this! It is very important to our office, too!

Actually, I think I have this figured out....it appears when you add a "dept" person to a business, they are NOT searchable as a true RT record is NOT created. If RT could add the functionality of adding a default yes or no when entering dept data (as in, "do you want to create a client record or not"....similar to "do you want to add a workflow to this changed address") that would solve a lot of issues. For those in the camp who strictly want to add a business in (like a 25 atty law firm as a business) but don't want to add the individuals of the business as full fledged RT records, they would just answer no and continue on. For those who want Atty Joe Sample who works at said 25 Atty firm to be a membership contact attached to a client record, they would answer yes and we now have the capability of adding Atty Joe Sample to a client membership. Whatcha say RT?

Looking to add a CPA who works in a CPA FIRM to attach to a client record via Membership.....create the firm as a business and then add the individual CPA as a Dept seems logical but then you can't add the dept record to the client via membership.....any other suggested ways to do this? I don't want UDF as the default.....I think the

We should also be able to have these names added to the Address/Phone/Email Report. Many times, I need a report to show all the contacts avaiable at a business, not just the primary address record.

Michele, this is a great suggestion, I want it as well. I have found that if I add the full names to the Primary Contact section, I can then seach by using the name. I want them to make the field searchable, becasue I have to enter the names twice and that is redundant!